ViewSonic Expands myViewBoard Ecosystem with Screen Sharing Solutions

ViewSonic Corporation, the world's leading provider of visual presentation products, announced that it is further expanding its myViewBoard ecosystem with new devices, including the myViewBoard Box, myViewBoard Direct and ViewBoard Huddle. The new devices support a variety of screen sharing scenarios, allowing users to easily connect to myViewBoard while enjoying many benefits. Combined with the rich digital whiteboard tools of myViewBoard, these solutions greatly enhance collaboration in both educational and commercial environments.

AOC Introduces G2 Gaming Monitor Lineup: IPS Panel, Up to 144Hz Refresh Rate, 1ms Response Time

AOC, one of the world's leading brands in the monitor market, introduces the new G2 line. The series consists of four models with Full HD resolution (1920x1080 pixels): 27-inch (68.6 cm) 27G2U and 27G2U5, as well as 23.8-inch (60.4 cm) 24G2U and 24G2U5. All models feature an aggressive, modern design with red accents on the front and back, and are equipped with a height-adjustable 130mm stand for better ergonomics.

The future is out of bounds: the NEX 3 series of smartphones offers users the ultimate 5G experience

At the presentation in Shanghai, vivo officially unveiled the new NEX 3 series smartphones. Following its commitment to future technologies, the company showed off the 5G and 4G versions of the devices. Vivo's flagship breakthrough innovations redefine industry standards and user experience. mobile devices. Cutting-edge 5G technology, unique design with an innovative display, and smart features are the hallmarks of vivo's new flagship series.

Transcend Information Inc., the world's leading media and storage manufacturer, is hosting a Summer Dream-themed photo contest that will consist of two stages: Landscape Photography and Creative Photography. Post your photos on Transcend's Facebook and VK pages for a chance to win valuable prizes from Transcend.

Profitable printing formula: pull a ticket with cashback

Until the end of September, it is doubly pleasant to buy printers with CISS of the PIXMA G series. Firstly, these are reliable and easy-to-maintain devices that provide high performance and low printing costs. And secondly, you will get cashback and a chance to win a certificate for a family trip!

Huami unveiled two new products and one concept product at IFA 2019

Technology company Huami held a successful presentation at IFA in Berlin. Following its international debut at MWC earlier this year, at IFA, the company announced the launch of two new products, the Amazfit GTS watch and Amazfit Stratos 3. Another recently launched product, the Amazfit GTR watch, received the IFA Product Technical Innovation Award 2019. Finally, Huami also introduced new technology, which will be used in future models smart watch Amazfit is a curved HD screen. Huami announced the release of new products at a press conference, the slogan of which was "Intellectual movement". The press conference was attended by representatives of almost 70 media from around the world.

HUAWEI Introduces Sport Bluetooth Headphones Lite

HUAWEI introduces the HUAWEI Sport Bluetooth Headphones Lite wireless earphones, which provide high-quality sound and 11 hours of music playback on a single battery charge. Headphones are equipped with Bluetooth 4.1 interface and communicate at a distance of up to 10 meters from the connected device.

The first ever high-end audio-video exhibition Hi-Fi & High End Show URAL starts this week!

Already this week, the first ever high-end audio-video exhibition Hi-Fi & High End Show URAL starts. What you need to know and not to miss: Aalt Jouk van den Hul himself, the founder of the Van Den Hul brand, is coming, Mikhail Borzenkov, Oleg Lyugin, MMS-Cinema, Pult.ru will give lectures. Prizes will be awarded: Yamaha WXA-50 network compact preamplifier, Yamaha YAS-108 Black soundbar, KEF M500 headphones, Ruark R1MK3 compact radio. For the first time in Russia, they will show Olympica NOVA and Minima Amator II acoustics from the Italian company Sonus Faber, Jamo C 97 II from the updated Concert series, the Cambridge AX line, Thorens TD 148A turntable and Q Aciustics Concept 300 acoustics.

Donor Day LG Electronics and Trade House "KIRGU"

Having taken over the baton of kindness from the city of Makhachkala, the #LGKirguMarathonDobra social project arrived in Khasavyurt, becoming the 101st donor day for LG and the second joint one with Kirgu Trade House. A large-scale event with the support of the FMBA of Russia, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Dagestan and the Republican Blood Transfusion Station was held at the modern Palace of Sports named after. Hamida Gamidova. The action was attended not only by local residents and representatives of both companies, but also by honored guests, including the Minister of Industry and Energy of the Republic of Dagestan Umakhanov Saigidpasha Darbishevich, as well as the head of the city of Khasavyurt Okmazov Zainudin Dadabegovich, chief physician of the State Budgetary Institution of the Republic of Dagestan "Khasavyurt Central City Hospital named after R.P. . Askerkhanov» Khiriyev Titalav Khairullaevich, Hero-Afghan Bulatkhanov Umaroskhab Abdulaevich, People’s Hero of Dagestan Omarov Zaybodin Laduevich.

While the most ardent computer enthusiasts ran to the store for the newest, ultra-modern chipset from Intel i955X, more calm and rational users were waiting for the appearance of the younger series of chipsets - i945 Express, developed under the code name Lakeport. The calculation is simple - to get most of the functionality of the i955X at a lower price. And so it happened - by the beginning of the summer the series saw the light. The release of i945 Express was timed to coincide with the release of dual-core Pentium D processors. Moreover, with the release of the i945 Express series, the last hopes that new processors would be supported by old boards were dispelled. Rumor has it that dual-core processors are actually compatible with the i925/915 Express, but not all samples work stably on these chipsets. Naturally, Intel, making every effort to strengthen the reputation of its products as the most reliable and stable, could not allow the release of partially compatible products. That is why the corporation has finally and irrevocably declared its refusal to try to teach the Pentium D to work with the i925/915 Express.

Intel 945PExpress

But let's see what the new chipset gives us besides the mentioned support for dual-core processors compared to its predecessors.

The second major innovation is DDR2 667 memory compatibility. Looking ahead, Asus decided to take it a step further and endowed the board in question with the ability to work with DDR2 800.

The south bridge has also undergone changes and received a new encoding - ICH7 / ICH7R. The new bridge provides support for four SerialATA II links with a throughput of up to 3 Gb/s (ICH6/ICH6R provided only 1.5 Gb/s). In addition to the increased interface bandwidth, we also get NCQ technology, which should also increase the performance of the disk subsystem. RAID 10 (0+1) and RAID 5 have been added to the ability to create RAID arrays of levels 0 and 1.

The number of PCI Express x1 lanes has increased from four to six, four of which can be combined into a PCI Express x4 bus. Thus, it became possible to combine 2 video cards into a bundle. This is what many manufacturers took advantage of, supplying motherboards on the new chipset with an additional slot for video cards, and marketers hastened to call this slot the second PCI Express x16. The fact that the PCI Express x16 video card slot actually communicates with the southbridge via the PCI Express x4 bus did not prevent them from writing support for 2 PCI Express x16 in the motherboard specifications.

Here, by and large, and all the changes. Time will tell how useful the additional features of the south bridge will be. Dual-core processors have already appeared on sale, but are not yet available to most users. In the meantime, we are all interested in the question of how different the performance of the new i945 Express chipset from the recent leader i925 Express. Today we will try to find out, but first things first.

ASUS P5LD2 DeluxeWiFi TV Edition

ASUS was the leading participant in the announcement of the novelty. Even before the official release of the new chipset, the company has already presented a sample board for the i945P - ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe.

The rich features of the board are partly implemented due to the capabilities of the new chipset, partly - by installing additional controllers and devices.

As we have already said, not all features of the board are due to the i945P stuffing, but more on that below. ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe belongs to the new series of ASUS motherboards under the AI ​​Life motto. The ASUS idea is being promoted in tandem with the Intel Digital Home concept and is designed to make the computer the smart, reliable and human center of the digital home. A number of proprietary functions and technologies are designed to help the computer become just that, including:

• AI Quiet- lowering the frequency and voltage of the processor during idle times and low load and, as a result, temperature, which makes it possible to reduce the speed of the fans up to a complete stop. The result is reduced power consumption and overall system noise;
• Stack Cool 2– board design without active cooling of components;
• Multi-language BIOS - the name speaks for itself, but since there is no Russian among the available languages, it is useless for us. It remains to be hoped that Russian will also appear in future versions of the Multi-language BIOS;
• AI NOS(Non-delay Overclocking System) - dynamic overclocking system, depending on the processor load;
• MyLogo2- the ability to record your own picture, which will be displayed when the computer passes POST and is preparing for loading operating system.

As well as functions with speaking names: CrashFree BIOS 2, CPU Lock Free.

The board's specs look pretty impressive.

As they say, no comment. The capabilities of the board will satisfy the needs of even the most demanding user.

Packaging and equipment

The board comes in a pretty large box with a carrying handle. The solid weight of the box only spurs interest in its contents.

But, despite the readiness to see something unusual inside, when you open the package, you are still surprised. When you pull everything out of the box, you can no longer understand how it all fit in there. And really, to put everything back, you have to work hard. Inside were the following components:

• maternal ASUS board P5LD2 Deluxe;
• 2 IDE cables 133/100/66 (80-pin) with them 3 jumpers for setting hard drives in Master, Slave modes;
• IDE cable (40-pin) for connecting optical drives;
• FDD loop;
• 5 SATA cables;
• 2 x Molex to dual SATA power adapters and 1 x Molex to single SATA power adapter;
• plug on the rear wall of the case;
• plug on back panel enclosures with a FireWire connector;
• a plug on the back of the case with two USB ports and one GAME port;
• a plug on the rear wall of the case with a COM port;
• GT bridge - a connector for combining two NVIDIA video cards in SLI;
• TV tuner card - wireless network adapter;
• antenna for wireless network;
• FM antenna;
• adapter for TV cable;
• cable with two RGB TV outputs, RGB TV input and S-Video connector;
• USB IR receiver;
• remote control with batteries;
• manuals for setting up and operating the motherboard and TV tuner - wireless network adapter, a sticker with the designation of the connectors on the board;
• 2 disks with software and drivers;
• book with WinDVD Suite disc.

As you can see, everything is taken into account, well, or almost all the needs of even a demanding user. It is unlikely that you will have to run to the store for some additional cord or connector, not only during assembly, but also during subsequent connection additional devices. To be honest, given that the platform is designed to be connected to the most modern power supplies with an EATX 12V connector, the manufacturer could not complete the product with Molex to SATA adapters at all, or at least not so many of them. I do not think that there are blocks with the mentioned power connector, but without the required number of connectors for SATA drives. But still, the manufacturer conscientiously included adapters for all five disks in the kit. But they still forgot to put the screws and threaded pins for fixing the board in the case. Although if you think about it, no one will install a product of this class in the cheapest Chinese case, and more or less decent cases are equipped with everything necessary for mounting components. So the lack of screws in the kit is more likely not a drawback, but a simple calculation. But the IDE cables included in the kit made a double impression on me personally. On the one hand, they attract with their stylish combination of black insulation of conductors, blue connectors and white ASUS inscriptions, on the other hand, these are the most common, wide IDE cables, which significantly hinder ventilation in the case. And no matter how stylishly such trains are colored, in the collected competition they still look extremely unaesthetic. I can't understand the reason why manufacturers do not want to switch to completing their products with modern round cables, which look much more attractive both from the point of view of aesthetics and the organization of good ventilation. And this is against the background of silent and high-quality cooling components of the Stack Cool2 board, for the implementation of which, according to ASUS, the design of the PSB is carefully thought out. And then all this is isolated from the environment by a pile of J cables. The only reassurance is that the IDE does not have long to live, and the cables that replaced the SATA are initially devoid of these shortcomings. However, given that round cables in the kit are still rare, the supply of cables instead of them cannot be written down as a minus either.

Design and layout

The layout of the elements of the motherboard can not be called ordinary at all. This is largely due to the large number of additional controllers. The abundance of various connectors and the bright colors in which they are painted are pleasing to the eye.

After a cursory examination of the design, two PCI-E x16 slots will certainly attract the eye, which makes it possible to use two video cards at once. As we already said when analyzing the capabilities of the chipset, and now, having studied the BIOS and the layout, we can say that the second (black) slot is still not a full-fledged PCI-E x16. In fact, this is a PCI Express slot that can work in x2 or x4 modes, and in the latter mode, the PCI Express x1 slot is disabled. The bandwidth of 4x should be enough in order not to cause delays in the work of modern video cards. Thus, it is possible to organize a system with four monitors. A GT bridge that comes with the kit allows you to combine video in SLI mode. In general, the possibility of working with two cards in a bundle for ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe is not documented. Therefore, the question of how the same SLI will look like on this board in terms of performance remains open. In the future, we will definitely test ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe and some other i945P-based motherboards for support for this item.

To connect additional expansion cards, there are 3 PCI slots and one PCI-E x1.

The northbridge of the chipset is cooled by an impressive passive aluminum heatsink located near the main PCI-E x16 slot. A sufficient distance is maintained between the slot and the heatsink so that the latter does not interfere with the installation of video cards with efficient cooling systems.

The southbridge is also cooled by a passive radiator, but smaller in size. Another aluminum radiator is installed on MOSFETs, which has a positive effect on the quality of the power supply. Moreover, when installing a water cooling system, due to the lack of airflow from the CPU cooler fan to the MOSFET, such a radiator is simply necessary.

The space around the processor socket is free from protruding parts that can become an obstacle to installing bulky cooling systems. The test cooler became easy and without problems.

The system is powered by a 24-pin connector. Next to it is an additional EZ Plug connector for connecting Molex.

Near the processor socket, we see an 8-pin EATX 12V connector. Its presence is necessary to support "gluttonous" Pentium XE processors and is a strict power requirement for using these processors. It should be noted that the first serial boards that went on sale were equipped with a simple 4-pin ATX 12V connector, which caused a stir, since this fact indirectly indicated that this board would not support Pentium XE. Later it turned out that the 24-pin ATX power connector and the 4-pin Molex should be enough to "feed" the Pentium XE, but still ASUS decided to equip the boards with 8-pin EATX 12V.

The one and only UltraDMA slot supported by the Intel ICH7R southbridge is in a pretty good location. Placed on the very edge of the board, it is rotated 90° relative to the usual location of such connectors and is clearly intended for connecting optical drives to it. But ASUS thought that this would not be enough and equipped the board with an additional ITE 8211F controller, thus implementing support for two more UltraDMA 100/66/33 channels.

In order to emphasize the support of channels by various controllers, ASUS chose blue for the ICH7R-controlled connector, and bright and catchy red for those controlled by the ITE 8211F chip.

Four SATA connectors, located next to the blue IDE, also seemed to the manufacturer not enough, so an additional one was installed on the board silicone controller Image 3132, which provides support for a fifth internal SATA connector and one external connector on the rear panel.

In general, the fifth internal connector just got into the load. In fact, the controller was installed just for the socket on the rear panel for connecting external hard drives. In addition to it, the following ports are located on the rear panel: parallel, 2 PS / 2 for connecting a mouse and keyboard, 4 USB, IEEE1394, S / PDIF output (coaxial + optical), RJ45 network, sound card input / output panel. As you can see, the serial COM port has disappeared from the rear panel altogether, but it can be connected by installing the plug that comes with the kit. In the same way, you can get a GAME port, 2 additional USBs and one IEEE1394.

The board's network capabilities are handled by the Marvell 88E8053 gigabit controller operating on the PCI-E bus.

The sound is implemented on the Realtek ALC882M 8-channel codec, which complies with the High-Definition Audio standard.

The Winbond W83647HF controller is responsible for voltage monitoring, rotation speed control and fan control.

Support for two IEEE 1394a ports is provided by the Texas Instruments TSB43AB22 controller.

All connectors for connecting ports located on plugs are grouped in the lower right corner of the board, which will allow you to lay wires from them without compromising ventilation. In general, the layout of the board is well thought out. All elements are in their places. No problems during assembly and further connection-disconnection various devices did not occur.

WiFi- TVEdition

As already mentioned, since we are considering the ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe motherboard in the WiFi-TV Edition, we get an additional expansion board. It supports the wireless network standards 802.11a/b/g, TV, FM tuner.

We also get a fairly functional remote control.

It should be noted that despite the fact that these devices do not represent anything outstanding and they can be purchased separately, they help the board to join the idea of ​​the Intel digital home. Using the remote control, you can turn on the computer without getting up from the sofa, call up the stylish and convenient shell of the complete PowerCinema program and watch TV shows, listen to the radio, start a video film and any programs, players, turn on music, view photos, etc. In addition, you can record TV programs on a hard drive or DVD-RW using a timer (the capabilities of the most expensive and sophisticated DVD players). You can also digitize analog video from external sources. Wireless network support makes it easy to connect home computers without the hassle of wires. I think that some of these features will be useful to any person.

OpportunitiesBIOS

The motherboard uses the traditional ASUS motherboard BIOS developed by American Megatrends Inc. As you understand, the description of all BIOS items is beyond the scope of the article, and in our case it is meaningless. Therefore, we will dwell only on the most interesting and important points concentrated in the Advanced Menu, which directly affect overclocking. In the "JumperFree Configuration" section, we can choose to boot with standard system settings (Auto) or use the following overclocking methods:

• AI NOS - we repeat, dynamic overclocking technology, depending on the processor load, the value of the maximum allowable overclocking is indicated in the range from 3 to 10%.
• Overclock Profile - the overclocking value is set rigidly in the range from 5 to 30 (!)%, or select one of the overclocking profiles:
• FSB888/DDR2 667;
• FSB960/DDR2 800;
• FSB1200/DDR2 800;
• FSB1280/DDR2 800;
• FSB1333/DDR2 667;
• FSB1333/DDR2 834.
• Manual - an item for those who know a lot about overclocking and understand that the best results can be achieved only by manually checking and setting each item of settings. You can change the following settings:
• processor bus frequency in the range from 100 to 400 MHz, while the user can manually select memory frequency dividers from a very decent number of available ones;
• the Performance Mode parameter can be set to Auto, Standard and Turbo;
• PCI Express bus frequency can be changed in the range from 90 to 150 MHz;

• the PCI bus frequency can be set depending on the processor frequency or fixed at 33.3 MHz;
• voltage on memory modules can be changed from standard 1.8 V to 2.3 V;

• voltage on the CPU varies in the range from 1.2875 V to 1.7 V in 0.0125V steps;

• FSB Termination Voltage value varies from 1.2 to 1.5 V in 0.1 V steps;

• using the MCH Chipset Voltage item, you can change the voltage on the north bridge of the chipset from 1.5 to 1.65 V in 0.05 V steps;

• the ICH Chipset Voltage parameter changes the voltage of the south bridge, in addition to Auto, only two values ​​​​are available: 1.05 and 1.2 V.

For novice overclockers, there are tips: low and normal voltages are highlighted in blue, slightly high voltages in yellow, and seriously high voltages in red.

IN Chipset section we have available memory timing settings in a very wide range:

• DRAM CAS Latency – 3-6;
• DRAM RAS Precharge - 2-6;
• DRAM RAS to CAS Delay - 2-6;
• DRAM RAS Activate to Precharge - 4-18;
• DRAM Write Recovery Time - 2-6.

You can also specify whether to use Hyper Path 3 memory acceleration technology.

Overclocking and testing

Overclocking and testing were carried out on a stand with the following configuration:

• motherboard: ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe;
• processor: Intel Pentium 4 540J, 3.2 GHz (16 x 200);
• RAM: 512 MB DDR2-533 DDR2 SDRAM (4.0-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz);
• video card: nVIDIA GeForce 6600 PCI-E (GPU 300 Mhz, Memory 700 Mhz);
• hard drive: Seagate ST3120827AS 120GB SATA 7200rpm;
• case: IN WIN S523 with Powerman 300W power supply;
• cooler Spire SP507B7-U, 2500 rpm;
• case ventilation: 80 mm fan 800 rpm for blowing, 80 mm fan 800 rpm. suction, 120 mm variable speed fan in the power supply.

Since we did not know the ability of memory modules to work in emergency modes, they were the first to be overclocked. In the SPD we found the following information.

As you can see, at the nominal frequency of 266 MHz, the timings are 4.0-4-4-12. But the modules were able to start without problems with delays of 3.0-3-3-8 at the same frequency of 266 (533) MHz. Lower timings were achieved only when the frequency was reduced to 200 MHz, which is not suitable for us at all. Therefore, testing in the nominal mode was carried out precisely in the 266 MHz 3.0-3-3-8 configuration. The processor also ran in nominal mode at a frequency of 3.2 GHz (16 x 200 MHz).

But we, of course, are interested in the maximum frequencies of the processor and memory. Gradually increasing the delays and raising the supply voltage of the modules to 2.0 V, we managed to achieve a memory frequency of 331 (662) MHz with timings of 5.0-5-5-15 , while the processor frequency was 3980 MHz (16 x 249 MHz).

The attentive reader will notice a small phenomenon. At the nominal value of the processor frequency, the cpu-z utility shows a frightening voltage on the processor of 2.816 V, while overclocking everything falls into place, and we see a plausible 1.39 V. The essence of this phenomenon lies beyond our understanding. If the voltage was not properly monitored during overclocking, everything could be attributed to problems of free-range operation, but this is not the other way around. No matter how we twisted the voltage values ​​​​and other settings, everything remained the same, especially since other monitoring utilities showed everything correctly in both cases.

Not wanting to stop at the achieved frequency, we lowered the memory frequency, but the processor could not work stably at a frequency exceeding 4000 MHz without raising the voltage. After raising the voltage to 1.4125 V, our copy easily overcame the bar of 4.0 GHz, but the eternal enemy of any overclocker - overheating - became in the way of further overclocking. When the temperature reached 62°C (in the S&M boot), the built-in thermal protection of the processor was activated, after which it began to skip cycles, reducing the resulting frequency. The discussion of this problem on the net is rapidly developing, and so far the result is the same - air cooling systems capable of keeping the temperature of Intel Pentium 4 5xx at frequencies above 4.0 GHz (and even with increased voltage) lower than the named one have not yet been found. Therefore, it was decided to carry out testing during overclocking at a frequency of 3980 MHz.

The DFI 925X-T2 motherboard based on the i925X chipset was chosen as an opponent, specially tested with the same set of components and with similar settings. Testing was carried out under the operating room Windows system XP Professional SP1. After changing the motherboard, the system was reinstalled.

conclusions

As you can see, the i945P presented by ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe is confidently leading, leaving the i925X no place for revenge. The difference in performance when replacing only the motherboard is visible to the naked eye. The board is great for overclocking, having all the necessary settings and features for this. The richest package bundle, coupled with an equally rich set of additional controllers, sharply distinguish the board from competitors, making you forget about its belonging to a certain platform and look at the computer a little differently. More recently, to get a computer with such functionality, the case would have to be packed to capacity with expansion cards. Of course, you can write down the high cost as a minus without thinking, but this is if you do not think about it. And when you think about it, you understand - there is something to pay for.

Motherboard ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe WiFi-TV Edition provided for testing by the Russian representative office of ASUS

For the last six months, the newly minted Intel platform under LGA775 processors with support for the most modern technologies like DDR-II and PCI Express gets absolutely polar ratings from consumers. The dissatisfaction is mainly due to the fact that, in sum, the ultra-modern components do not have enough performance to be able to claim significant bonuses, at a decent cost to purchase new hardware, which is almost incompatible with the previous generation. The reasons for dissatisfaction include the high latency of the current DDR-II memory, a small difference between graphics performance under PCI-E x16 and AGP 8x, clock frequencies of cores and system buses comparable to the previous generation of Pentium 4 processors, and much more.

In turn, opponents emphasize the real novelty of the platform, the great potential for its development, especially against the background of the exhausted capabilities of the same DDR-I or AGP. Yes, they agree, at the current stage, the possibilities inherent in theory have been implemented in practice in a somewhat "raw" form, however, this is only the beginning and in any case there will be no return to the old, as well as alternatives, and prices are already gradually accepting a civilized view. As for the further evolution of the platform - so please, nothing stands still, and the recent announcement of the Intel Pentium 4 EE 3.46 GHz processor with the new system logic 925XE Express, supporting a 1066 MHz system bus, is direct proof of this.

Needless to say, where the wind blows: very soon FSB 1066 MHz support will migrate from Extreme (Xtreme) Edition versions of chipsets and processors to mass platforms, DDR-II 667 memory will receive certification and support, the market will be saturated with affordable video cards, and finally it will be possible to talk about the transition from Socket 478 to Socket 775. Those who want a new one right now will have to spend a lot of money without clear prospects, those who want to buy with an eye on a subsequent upgrade, it's more reasonable to wait half a year. But one way or another, if we are talking about processors from Intel, you will have to work with the LGA775 platform anyway.

Okay, nightingale with fables... Today we'll talk about what awaits us in 2005, namely the new generation of Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets with a series of ICH7 southbridges replacing, respectively, the current Alderwood/Grantsdale (i925X/ i915) with ICH6, as well as about new processors and a little about the corresponding system piping for new PCs.

Everyone knows Intel's tendency to give pretty names to current working projects. There was a new name for the platform based on Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets, however, like almost all of the company's current projects, the idea is being promoted within the framework of the "digital home" concept. So, in 2005, Intel plans to promote the East Fork (EF) strategy, which, in addition to the traditional set of processors and system logic, will be related to the development network controllers and related software.

It cannot be said that new chipsets are designed exclusively for work in desktop PCs, such a clear division in Intel's chipset strategy has long been gone. The same Lakeport will appear in the third quarter of 2005 as part of the Napa mobile platform ( new version Centrino) called Calistoga, with the ICH7-M south bridge and will be tailored for processors with Yonah / Merom cores, support for DDR2-667 memory and the Serial ATA-300 interface. It is already known that specific versions of the Lakeport chipset will work with server variants of the Xeon series chips. Today we will not get into this jungle and will limit ourselves only to options for desktop PCs.

Judging by currently known rumors/leaks, the release of new versions of chips with the Prescott core will be completed this year, the Pentium 4 570J with a FSB of 800 MHz, 1 MB of L2 cache and NX bit support. The next core, Prescott 2, which will be implemented as Pentium4 630, 640, 650, 660 and 670 models, will differ little from its predecessor at first - the same frequency barrier (3.8 GHz), the same connector (LGA775), the same FSB (800 MHz) and the same manufacturing process (90 nm), only the L2 cache will be increased to 2 MB, support for EM64T instructions, EIST technology (Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology) and possibly Vanderpool / LaGrande will appear. Although I strongly doubt the latter, the time to support these technologies with hardware and software has not yet come.

Already by the middle of 2005, a 2-core processor with a Smithfield core is being prepared. The processor will be presented in three versions. One, for the performance sector, will be supported by the Glenwood chipset, the other two versions for the mainstream systems will work with the Lakeport chipset. In the second half of 2006, Smithfield will move to 65 nm process technology.

For now, we will have to be content with Pentium 4 series processors with the Prescott core and for some time with the Prescott 2 core. But the Glenwood and Lakeport chipsets with the ICH7 southbridge decoupling, which will be presented very soon, may well outlive all Prescott versions, and maybe even and NetBurst architecture. :)

Glenwood/Lakeport northbridges

If we think from the point of view of continuity of generations, then Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets can be called direct evolutionary heirs of Intel 925/915. There are changes, but they affected mainly clock frequencies. Now each of them (and not just the new i925XE) will support FSB 1066 MHz. Support for 2-channel DDR2-667 memory will debut for the first time, and southbridges will get native support for Serial ATA 300.

Expected characteristics of the new generation of chipsets

Chipset Glenwood Lakeport-G Lakeport-P

Support for the integrated controller 2-channel DDR2-667 will increase the peak performance of the memory subsystem from 8.5 Gb / s for DDR2-533 to 10.8 Gb / s. Please note that the notorious Turbo memory mode, which gives about 3% - 7% performance increase, first introduced in the i875P (PAT) chipset and then migrated to the Intel 925X, will also remain in the new version of Glenwood.

The "flagship" chipset's support for the 800 MHz system bus is not a tribute to compatibility with old Pentium 4 or Celeron processors. Rather, it is aimed at supporting the first processors with the Smithfield core, which, due to the 2-core architecture and the associated issues of increased power consumption, will initially only support 800 MHz FSB. And, as has already been repeatedly stated in the press, lower clock frequencies than modern P4.

As for the replacement for the Intel 915, both chipsets expected at the time of the announcement will support a PCI Express x16 slot (and no AGP!). Two versions will remain traditional - a discrete version of Lakeport-P and Lakeport-G with an integrated graphics core, but nothing has been heard about the GV / GL options yet. Nothing surprising, since even the i915GV/GL have appeared recently and are sold mainly by system integrators. They say different things about the integrated graphics in Lakeport-G, but it looks like it will be either the current DirectX 9 GMA 900 core with a clock speed of 333 MHz, or its "overclocked" version. As for the ADD2 expansion cards that support a second display in CRT, LCD, TV and HDTV formats, there is talk of further expanding the feature set and video output capabilities with something like the ADD2+.

At the stage of commissioning a new generation of chipsets, Intel finally and irrevocably refuses support for DDR1 memory. DDR2-667 certification appears instead, samples of which are promised by the manufacturers by the first quarter, and mass batches - by the second quarter of 2005, just in time for the start of deliveries of motherboards to Glenwood/Lakeport. The step, of course, is a bold one, since the cost of DDR2-533 modules is still somewhat higher than the prices for DDR400. However, it is possible that Intel believes that by the time Lakeport chipset supplies begin, prices for DDR400/DDR2-533 will equalize.

As shown in the table above, the older Glenwood chipset supports up to 8GB of memory in 4 slots. By the time boards appear on it, along with modules on chips with a capacity of 256 Mbit and 512 Mbit, versions on 1 Gbit chips will be widely available. So far, nothing is known about support for EM64T (AMD64) instructions, but most likely, systems based on the Glenwood chipset will be sharpened for 64-bit instructions.

Southbridges ICH7

The new ICH7 family of southbridges, on closer inspection, are also enhancements to the ICH6 with the same inter-bridge 2.0 Gb/s Direct Media Interface (DMI) connection. As you know, due to the addition and / or combination of support for RAID and Wi-Fi, it was assumed that in addition to the basic ICH6, versions ICH6R, ICH6W and ICH6RW would appear on the market. It ended up that the last two remained on paper, and the public, puzzled by the integration wireless networks in a desktop PC, I had to buy external Wi-Fi devices or kits from manufacturers with an attached PCI card.

Meanwhile, East Fork's strategy will still include support for Wi-Fi, at least in part of the "digital home" platforms. So far, Intel hasn't promised any new Wi-Fi-enabled southbridges. From Taiwan, from manufacturers, there are already some leaks on this topic, they say that at the time the first samples of chips with the Smithfield core appear, a special IEEE802.11a / b / g Caswell 2 module will be presented. I won’t be surprised if in the end will do without the integration of elements of wireless controllers into the southbridge, it is already quite hot without it. :)

The list of new southbridges includes five versions of ICH7. This refers to the basic ICH7, ICH7DH (Digital Home, basic for family entertainment PCs), ICH7DO (Digital Office, SOHO-class digital office), ICH7DE (Digital Enterprise, something very productive with support for RAID levels 5, 0, 1 and 10 , for enterprises) and the trivial ICH7R, with support for RAID levels 0, 1 and 10.

New southbridges of the ICH7 series:

Of course, the first thing that catches your eye is the increase in the number of PCI Express x1 slots (or buses, that is, lanes) from four in ICH6 to six in some versions of ICH7. This fact will allow advanced motherboard manufacturers to make their own versions of SLI motherboards on Intel desktop chipsets.

Another improvement is more interesting, now there is support for Serial ATA 300 (Serial ATA II) with the same number of integrated ports. And the most significant difference between the new southbridges from each other is the set of RAID levels that can be changed from version to version. True, the RAID5 that appeared for the first time will be typical only for the ICH7DE version.

Only the ICH7DE south bridge is planned to support Intel AMT (Intel Active Management Technology) software technology. It cannot be described in a nutshell, the technology implies a new level of active management and control of enterprise resources, from operational diagnostics and administration to resource development strategy planning, etc. Even miracles such as remote power-up of client PCs, operating system upgrades, data recovery and much more will be available. AMT was talked about a lot at the latest Intel Developer Forums in San Francisco and Moscow, who are interested can briefly read about this technology. I have not delved into this in detail yet, but according to Intel management, the introduction of AMT could give the company an annual 10% savings in enterprise resource management costs.

The EnergyLake technology, which will appear as part of the ICH7DH Southbridge for "digital homes", implies a development on the current topic of energy saving. I do not know the details about this technology yet.

But already now we can say that two LAN chips for the PCI Express bus will debut simultaneously with the new Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets: Tekoa with Gigabit Ethernet (1000BASE-T) support and Ekron with Fast Ethernet (100BASE-TX) support. The Tekoa chip with the PCI Express bus, among other things, is interesting for its reduced power consumption compared to the previously promoted Northway GbE chip, as well as support for iAMT technology.

Rest functionality ICH7 families are practically known to us from the previous generation. Of course, Intel HDA (High Definition Audio) technology will be fully present with support for 7.1 audio codec, Dolby Digital / DTS systems and VoIP (Voice-over-IP) technology. Eight USB 2.0 ports will remain unchanged.

A few words about what will follow Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets in the future. The web is already telling scary tales about the North Bridge Broadwater paired with ICH8. The chipset will support the mythical Allendale/Millville chips with DSB 800/1066 MHz, a new tire DMI with a bandwidth of 1 Gb / s in both directions, 2-channel DDR-2 533/667 and DDR3-800 memory, and its integrated version will have fourth-generation Intel graphics. However, all this is still in a terrible prospect, since the release of Broadwater is not planned before the end of 2006.

In conclusion, we can guess a little about the timing of the start of deliveries of Glenwood/Lakeport chipsets and motherboards based on them. Rumors from Taiwanese OEMs say that distribution of trial batches of new A0 stepping chipsets will begin towards the end of the 4th quarter of 2004, that is, before the New Year. I wouldn't be surprised if the East Fork strategy in a "kit" with new chipsets and processors is announced with fanfare at the spring Intel Developer Forum, which traditionally takes place in February. As a result, if nothing goes wrong, the first samples may be featured in the news and reviews before March, and we'll see plenty of mass motherboard samples at the CeBIT exhibition. All that's left is to survive the winter. :)

All three chipsets provide a comparable feature set, and you won't notice much difference in performance unless you run deep tests. RAID support is the same for the three chipsets, each of them gives a visual alert if one of the hard drives fails. All three chipsets lack professional features such as notification e-mail because it requires a local installation of the mail server.

The nVidia nForce 6 is without a doubt the most attractive chipset for Intel-based computers in terms of functionality. It provides a rich set of features, including six SATA ports, 10 USB 2.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports with many "delicious" features. And all this with a very friendly interface. But this does not mean that nForce 6 is the best choice for each.

Although the Intel ICH7-R southbridge has been on the market for more than a year and a half, it provides quite decent performance. It is inferior to the newer ICH8 and nForce 6 MCP in terms of I/O performance, but this is still no reason to change the system to ICH7. Intel chipsets with ICH7 and ICH8 support Matrix Storage technology, which allows you to install multiple RAID arrays on one set of hard drives.

The ICH8 was a real surprise, although it doesn't differ much from the ICH7 in terms of technical specifications: there are 10 USB 2.0 ports instead of eight, and six Serial ATA ports instead of four. But the performance of this south bridge has increased. Data transfer performance slightly outperforms ICH7 in almost all tests, with the southbridge winning most I/O tests and our USB 2.0 throughput test. The ICH8 is the only bridge in our testing that delivers superior transfer speeds, even when two high-speed USB 2.0 devices are connected to it at the same time. And taking into account the fact that motherboards based on P965 and ICH8 are cheaper than products based on nForce 680i SLI, it becomes more difficult to choose one or another chipset.

Replacing the ICH8, the new southbridge is a truly new generation with impressive performance and impressive features.

Let's look at its properties:

Up to 6 PCIEx1 ports;
up to 4 PCI slots;
4/6 (4 for ICH9, 6 for ICH9R) SATA II 3.0 Gb/s ports with support for AHCI mode and NCQ function * ;
the ability to organize a RAID array (only for ICH9R) levels 0, 1, 0 + 1 (10) and 5 with the Matrix RAID function;
12 USB devices 2.0 (on two EHCI host controllers) with the ability to individually disable;
Gigabit Ethernet MAC controller and a special interface (LCI/GLCI) for connecting a PHY controller (i82566 for Gigabit Ethernet implementation, i82562 for Fast Ethernet implementation);
support for Intel Turbo Memory;
High Definition Audio (7.1);
binding for low-speed and obsolete peripherals, etc.

The letter R at the end of the abbreviation means support for Raid, and not simple, but 5 with the Matrix RAID function, which means that one set of disks can be used in several RAID modes at once - for example, RAID 0 and RAID 1 can be organized on two disks, and for each the array will be allocated its own portion of the disk.

It will be useful to many new feature Intel Rapid Recover Technology, allowing you to quickly resume system operation in the event of a failure hard drive or data corruption. And given the above, ICH9R will allow you to simultaneously raise, for example, Raid 5 as the main one and, in addition to it (on the same disks!) Raid 1 SLR for separate support for the safety of the operating system.

The southbridge also now supports eSATA and SATA Selective Disablement, up to 12 USB 2.0 ports and Intel technology Turbo Memory, which is worth a special mention.

Intel Turbo Memory allows you to install a 512 MB or 1 GB NAND flash memory module in one of the PCI-E slots to use it as a cache for the operating system, which can significantly reduce the number of hard disk accesses, thereby significantly speeding up application loading and opening files.

With such an impressive collection of benefits, they have gained well-deserved popularity as a platform for low-cost server solutions such as VPN servers, WEB servers, and file servers for small organizations.

*Wikipedia says - NCQ (English Native Command Queuing - hardware command queuing) - a technology used in SATA devices since SATA / 300 to improve performance. Supported Devices NCQ are able to accept multiple requests at the same time and reorganize the order of their execution to achieve maximum efficiency (performance) taking into account the internal architecture of the device (minimizing the number of head movements and waiting for the desired sector on the track). NCQ improves the performance of tasks associated with random reading, processing data from two or more sources, simultaneous operation of several programs.